Status Updates From The Muhammad Ali Reader

"Nobody know me. I fool 'em all."
- Muhammad Ali to Sports Illustrated writer, Mark Kram,Sr.

A prismatic approach to biography from then-current articles.
Homage and roast, analysis and tribute all in one book.

I have heard a lot about Gay Talese, but I couldn't tell you anything he wrote.

His essay on Ali meeting Fidel Castro is excellently written, but I don't know why he wrote it.

Ali is sadly riddled with Parkinson's and barely part of the story. Cuban legend Theofilo Stevenson is desperate to earn Ali's respect, but Ali is mostly exhausted.

There are so many excellent vignettes, and none of them tell the same story. Some of them overlap, of course. Everyone exposed to Ali comes away with strong feelings.
I loved the Davis Miller story. He's a former prizefighter (though not a boxer). So his insight into Ali's current state is different from everyone else's.
I was shocked to learn that at 47, Ali was already experiencing the effects of Parkinson's.

Arranged by decades (4), THE MUHAMMED ALI READER
offers the unfiltered biography of a boxing legend through
the writings of over 30 professionals. As much documentary
of the latter part of the 20th century as verbal biopic.

As we reach the 70s, the focus is the Ali-Frazier fights. Ali seems a bit more thoughtful, or since this is a series of articles, essays and interviews, is portrayed as more thoughtful. The editor, Gerald Early, has found writing by some of the best journalists of the 20th century, and organized it by decade, which is completely logical.
But how would this be different if it had a special section for Black writers?

Norman Mailer, one of the most respected American essayists of the 1900s, vacillates between some incredible stereotyping and some incredible insight. At one point he is talking about the differences between Black fighters and one fighters, at another point, he is explaining why Ali is such a complex individual and can't easily be comprehended by anyone.
But I suppose that's what made Ali the greatest.

It will be hard to find another book that has writing from The Black Scholar, Leroi Jones and Jackie Robinson.
Early didnt just find the most notable writers of the time, which he did. There are excellent pieces from Tom Wolfe, George Plimpton and Jimmy Cannon.
But, I know Leroi Jones as the poet, Amiri Baraka, and father of current Newark mayor, Ras Baraka.

Even Plimpton and Tom Wolfe oversimplified Clay (should I refer to him by his name at the time, or by his name? I'm not a journalist.)
The real recognition of Ali's complexity comes from Leroi Jones (you may know him as Amiri Baraka) and Gordon Parks. They essentially leave judgement out of the discussion and simply discuss what Clay is saying and doing on its own merits.

I love this. Ali is a strange figure for me. I suppose he is for most of America. Or at least he should be. The country sainted him after the Atlanta Olympics in 1996, and he is essentially universally beloved since his passing.
But as a fighter, he was never universally beloved. People have turned him into a representative for all sorts of causes, but his contemporaries didn't see him in that way.